A podcast all about Japanese cartoons and comics as discussed by three self-proclaimed experts in the world of anime and manga! Plus anime news / reviews, coverage of classic anime, hentai / yaoi, and much, much more. Updated every week. We hope.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

There are officially too many good videogames coming out right now, but we resist the urge to slack off just barely. Daryl talks about The Twelve Kingdoms, Clarissa gives us her thoughts on the first few episodes of both Death Note and D. Gray-Man, and we somehow manage to talk about our experiences at Anime Weekend Atlanta 2006 in 30 minutes instead of 2 hours.

We were going to write in the rest of the show notes, but these videogames aren't going to play themselves, okay?! Well, the ones that aren't Final Fantasy 12, anyway.

Introduction (0:00 - 23:28)We've got three copies of Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid Volume 1 to give away, courtesy of Funimation. It's simple: just email us your name and address (and while you're at it, include some feedback about the podcast!) and then we'll choose the winners at random from the entries we receive by the 16th or so. Actually, the 16th is Thanksgiving, isn't it. Eh, whatever; we're otaku who live in isolation. To us, Thanksgiving is just another day! If we were smart, we'd choose the winners randomly from the people who've added us as favorites on Podcast Pickle, but we're not. Oh yeah, and we answer your emails: somehow, discussion on Rumiko Takahashi turns into discussion on Akira Toriyama. No wonder Keith Allison sent us this:

Let's News! (23:28 - 31:49)We talk about Vertical's licensing of the manga Terra E or Toward the Terra by Keiko Takemiya the writer of some shonen ai stuff, HOWEVER Terra E is NOT shonen ai. Gerald is furious with the movie because his VHS tape of it died five minutes before the end forever depriving him of knowing the outcome. Production IG is also continuing the 70's robot show Raideen which was remade previously in '96. Also, Japanese companies are not being paid on their licenses, perhaps because they're insane on their licensing costs.

Promo: R5 Central (31:49 - 33:14)Mike's just a little despondent over the news that the Wachowskis are going to be the ones making the upcoming live-action Speed Racer movie. The GAIM promo was originally what was in this space, but then everything got thrown into disarray when we heard that Rym and Scott pronounce it "Gee Aim."

Review: The Twelve Kingdoms (33:14 - 53:49)Daryl summarizes it this way: it's like Fushigi Yuugi. Only it doesn't suck. This was another excellent newer show that was pretty much ignored by the vast majority of anime fans, which is a crying shame because it's awesome. If you're into epic fantasy tales of political intrigue, this is the show for you.

See this map? MEMORIZE IT. There will be a test later.

Long straight red hair is second only in superiority to long straight black hair. Someday all the "redheads" of the world will have red hair like Jennifer Garner's in the first episode of Alias.

This is why The Twelve Kingdoms succeeds where Fushigi Yuugi and all the rest fail. NO CRAPPY ROMANCE STORY.

Anime News Network's entry for The Twelve Kingdoms - come on otaku, Aya Hisakawa is the voice of the main character! And it's got Takehito Koyasu playing the role he always plays! In fact, there's a lot of famous seiyuu in this, so you Hitoshi Doi types HAVE to watch it now!

Twelve Kingdoms Encyclopedia of Terms - both in English and Japanese; the index page is a 404 so I'm just linking to the "K" page because there's a lot of entries there and it inspires dread

Early Impressions: Death Note and D. Gray-Man (53:49 - 1:04:11)By listener request, Clarissa's gone ahead and checked out some of the new shows currently airing in Japan so we can talk about something new for once. Here's what she thinks so far about these two anime adaptations of popular Shonen Jump series.

This is Allen Walker. Observe, you can tell it's the Victorian era by his stylish Black Jack ensemble.

This is Allen's parasite-type anti-Akuma weapon, aka his left arm.

What is akuma? (Lady don't hurt me.)

Okay, this is an akuma. I was going to pull a screencap, but none of them give a full view on one screen without being too tiny and dark to make out.

The Earl of the Millenium and his easy Akuma model kit! It only looks innocent until the soul of your loved one gets trapped in it and it kills you, then wears you like a flesh suit.

And because I like them and I felt like it, here's Allen and a couple other Exorcists in their semi-gothy uniforms.

Promo: Eeeper's Choice (1:04:11 - 1:05:03)Eeeper bought each of us copies of the Region 2 DVD of Only Yesterday just because we complained on an earlier episode that Turner Classic Movies aired it but there's still no R1 DVD. We figure the least we can do to pay him back is play his promo.

Con Report: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2006 (1:05:03 - 1:33:58)Nobody else in the Orlando area who goes to AWA seems to enjoy it at all except for us. This is mysterious and terrifying. Anyway, AWA was Daryl's first convention, and it's still his favorite. Listen on and discover why!

Promo: Otaku Generation (1:33:58 - 1:34:24)OG's got the right idea. Take goofy excerpts from your podcast and make THOSE your promos, that way you can have TONS of them. We should rip that idea off from them just like how we rip everything else off from them! Only we'll claim we ripped off Dave and Joel instead. BRILLIANT!

Closing (1:34:24 - 1:39:38)This segment STINGS, and that's a shoot! Next week, we're actually probably just going to put up the rest of Clarissa's take on the Fall 2006 season, but the week after THAT is when we'll stick to what we said here. Gerald is going to live up to William Bradford's expectations by reviewing "obscure bootleg anime from the 80s" since he'll be talking about Future Police Urashiman. Daryl's going to review obscure non-bootleg anime from the 80s since he's going to talk about a movie he likes that everyone else hates (other than crazy old men who refuse to get broadband), The Dagger of Kamui. Finally, now that Daryl caved in on reviewing Fist of the North Star, Clarissa's caving and reviewing Jojo's Bizarre Adventure! Just Part 1 for now, otherwise it'd take up the entire show.

You know who'd make a good Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Fist of the North Star character? That's right: Carl Horn!

The flattened-out pointed hand is the most vital element to mastery of both Hokuto Shinken and Stands alike.

59 comments:

Haha, I knew I shouldn't have taken out what I said right after calling Haibane Renmei one of my favorite shows. I really like the show, but I'm not one of those nuts who watch it every year at New Year's or whatever. In fact, I haven't rewatched it since the first time I saw it, which was in mid-2004.

But I will say this much: my fondness for Haibane Renmei stems from a very personal response to the central theme of the show. Had that connection not been there, I probably would have found the show only moderately interesting, with a few very powerful moments. I don't think it's endlessly deep or mysterious, and I'm not terribly fascinated with the aspects of the show that I've seen other HR fans wax on at length about.

It's kind of like Saikano. I recently realized that the show is dark and melodramatic to the point that it's flirting with self-parody, but man, if you held up a mirror of all the thoughts and fears that were screaming through my head in the times following 9/11, you'd come up with something that looks pretty close to some of the events in that show. I guess that's how a show that I'd otherwise be scoffing at wound up leaving me rather profoundly shaken.

But anyway, about the slice-of-life thing, I wasn't trying to disavow any link to slice-of-life. I just tend to think of SOL (heheh) anime as somewhat less structured than Haibane was.

Now that I'm actually having to think about it, maybe it wasn't such a good argument. I just thought Haibane was a fairly straightforward morality story with a slightly less direct/focused storytelling style.

I agree with most of what was said about Takahashi. I think she's a pretty good storyteller when she's not bending over backwards to extend a storyline, or support said storyline. I guess that's why you can take any episode or story arc out of a show like Ranma or UY and enjoy it for what it is, but taken as a whole, the shows or comics themselves are simply exhausting.

I want to see Maison Ikkoku, but I think I could live without ever seeing the whole of Ranma or UY. Inu Yasha, I've seen all of 10 minutes of, and I won't have a single complaint if that fact never changes.

Actually, Anno had gone off to do work on the Macross *series* (1982), Daicon IV was 1983, and DYRL was afterwards (1984).

And btw, you deftly worked around what i consider by far Takahashi's best work (at least in terms of its translation to anime), Maison Ikkoku. Perfect not-too-rushed pace; not going way long; it has a defined beginning, middle and ending; It manages to work in takahashi's bits of zany humor without having to go outside the bounds of 'reality' so much. It's my favorite anime TV series of all time, though who knows, it somehow talks to the 'ronin-san' in all of us.

I think we stepped around it since we have very contrasting opinions on the show, and if we'd brought it up that would have been a rather long talk which we're probably saving for another time.. I personally don't really think that it's much different in terms of "padded-ness" than any of her other shows. There were plenty of episodes in Maison Ikkoku that could easily serve as filler and really didn't advance the relationship to any great degree anymore so than the previous or subsequent episode. I think it's the only long show that Rumiko's done that I don't hate, but I also don't think that it's too terribly different from the other work she's done in terms of how unnecessarily long it is.

I totally agree, Gerald. In my opinion, MI is definitely one of her better series, but it does suffer from some of the same problems that her other, longer shows do...just in lesser amounts. You could probably take out a lot of the episodes, and it wouldn't change much.

That said, I do really like the show. Although, it'd probably be higher on my list of favorites if I didn't find Godai's neighbors more annoying than funny. :P

Hmmm. I don't know what the issue is; it could be that none of the admins have had time to approve users in the last couple of days. But I'd think you'd be approved eventually unless someone mistook you for a spammer.

If it comes down to it, though, you could tell me your username and I'll ask about it.

Wait, so the Panel of DOOM wasn't supposed to be in black and white?! I was not aware of that... The Kamen Rider clips seemed just really good in black and white, Miss Critical Moment, not so much.

Even though D's Mech Fest (Which I got to sit next to Daryl for, which was totally sweet.) was at a fairly bad time slot, and even started an hour earlier, there was a fairly large crowd, although I did feel that I was younger than everyone else by about 10 years.

Why am I not surprised that Daryl did have Clown Pistols even when he told me he didn't...

I did not end up going to the AWO party, which I regret. Yet I get the feeling I'd get kicked out if I did go there; was that one of those 18 and up type of party, or no?

(I suspect that even as I speak, Daryl is sewing up holsters for clown pistols, so he always has one at hand..."I've run out" he says. HA!)

On the anime retro-revival from '92.

It's pretty well known that Giant Robo was the huge winner, in terms of...hmmm..being worth the time to watch? having a steady quality? I dunno, but it worked, even reviving my then-flagging interest.

But the TV shows were all OVER the place. My main three were Tekkaman Blade, Getta Robo Go and Tetsujin 28 FX, I'm sure there must have been others (Raideen was during this time), I just can't recall the others.

Tekkaman Blade managed to take a rather harsh and angry show which was saddled with frankly GOOFY design and made it smooth and cool and very, very interesting.

Getta Robo Go just...totally fell down. It looked bad, it was animated rather poorly, it committed the unforgivable sin of TOTALLY IGNORING the previous Getta shows (as well as the rich canvas of the Go Nagai Robot universe) and just lay there like a steaming pile of dog poo on a snow covered winter sidewalk. About the only decent thing that came of Getta Robo Go is a fairly kick ass Ichiro Mizuki OP theme. I'm not sure, but I think Getta Robo Go was one of the early "give it all to the Korean studio" productions and I think it showed. There's just a flatness, a lack of snap and flash and love and life. It looks like made for America Sat AM crap. It SHOULD have been the SUPER AWESOME. There should have been a Getta G meets Getta Go teamup.

Tetsujin 28 FX is an odd bird. Clearly designed for a young audence, it's pretty much a 'toy commercial' show but there's a lot of flash and snap going on. And keeping the plot of 'The original T28 happened and the world is different because of it' makes it rather fun. But there's that one totally disturbing character, the little girl with huge glasses and even larger breasts...I just don't know what's going on with that.

And T28FX also has a super kick ass OP theme.

Oh, there was another retro-remake, an animated version of Red Baron. never saw it but the OP theme is outstanding.

Awesome show guys. I am gonna download D. Gray Man. I have read the manga but I was totaly lost, but it seems that Clarissas' review explained all :P . I really enjoyed the con review, but I already knew it was fun after listening to so many from other podcasts, those clown pistols crack me up. Somehow I think Daryl might have one for every anime-like podcaster, in order to take over :P (or at least that is what I imagine). I have heard of 12 kingdom, but i have never give it a try , maybe now i will.

The username "Kaonashi" has been registered at the Anime Jump forums since October 31st. Perhaps if you tried to register using the same name on November 7th, it wouldn't have gone through because of that.

My memory is hazy on this, but I recall there being some sort of eternal schism among the romance anime fans over whether Maison Ikkoku or Kimagure Orange Road was the best [romance] anime of all time. Sure, there were a few rogues out there going to bat for Smarmylade, er, Marmalade Boy and such, but it pretty much boiled down to those two. The arguments in favor of or against either show were almost inevitably terrible and guaranteed to make your brain hurt: this page is pretty indicative of the level of discourse on both sides. That's a KOR one because it's much easier to find crazy KOR people, perhaps because Ranma drew away a good bit of the psycho fan contingent from MI.

Given that love is a neurochemical con job and women are actually all bitches such that any of them who act nice to you are actually just trying to make you let your guard down so they can hurt you that much more (at least, that's what Uncle Fran's Musical Forest teaches), I'd cast my vote for Maison Ikkoku on the grounds that Yotsuya is electrifying enough to be one of the Holy Trinity of Daryl Surat Anime Role Models, with the other two being Gotoh from Patlabor and Oberstein from Legend of the Galactic Heroes. As such, he deserves the top RSPW accolade: typing his name as "J.C. YOTSUYA~!" The upcoming J-drama for Maison Ikkoku had better do the Great One justice, though given how the previous live-action MI turned out...

How on Earth is Yotsuya electrifying? He's the same wishy washy pissant that Kasuga is. Well, "pissant" is a bit strong, but I mean both of them can't decide who they want, both of them spend umpteen episodes to decide even though they know who they like in the first episode, both of them don't actually want to turn the other girl down since they're so concerned about their "feelings". I mean the only thing that really separates them is the fact that Yotsuya is about eight years or so older and Kasuga has psychic powers that he never uses.

Hey guys another great show. I feel like now I might have to go to AWA next year between you and the Ninja Consultants raving about it. If they manage to cater the schedule to each kind of fan as well as you say they do that sounds pretty awesome by itself. Oh and I didn't know they got rid of cosplay skits, but a con that is smart enough to do that I definitely need to go to at least once.

I'm watching D.Grayman too and enjoying it. It seems to tread that tragedy/comedy line that Full Metal Alchemist also did, but I think it tends to skew more towards the comedy. I'm not sure, maybe it'll have an episode when it gets much more serious than comedic? I don't know because I haven't read the manga.

A little insider information for Daryl about the "stinger." I worked in movie and TV advertising and from house to house they might have slightly different terminology for talking about the same things, but where I worked we called that last shot at the end of a trailer a "button." Generally the term "stinger" I've heard used in reference to big music hits in horror movies that are designed to make the audience jump.

How on Earth is Yotsuya electrifying? He's the same wishy washy pissant that Kasuga is.

Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you incontrovertible proof that Gerald has not actually been READING those Maison Ikkoku volumes he's been buying, and he must have at least half the series or something by now, if not more than that. Yotsuya is not the same character as Godai. Godai's first name is "Yusaku," which I suppose also starts with a "Y" and has three syllables, but practically nobody in the manga ever calls him by that name. Everyone just calls him Godai. Yotsuya is the guy who lives next door to Godai, in Room 4. This sort of thing is why we said he shouldn't watch The Twelve Kingdoms!

Why does every anime fan in the Orlando area dislike AWA except for you three?

The answer was pretty much universal among everyone I asked: "it's way too disorganized." I guess they're looking at things from the staffer perspective (one guy said something like "they should have read the hotel contract in advance and demanded that the Waverly not allow Bristol-Myers to do what they did"), but from my standpoint as a sorta-attendee, the AWA con guide is laid out so that the actual schedule is in the book, in the middle where the staple is so you can immediately open to it. Plus, there's three tables, one per day, that shows the schedule, one row per room. This sounds really obvious, but I don't think any Florida anime convention does this. Mind you, if I really cared, I'd volunteer and do it myself, but I still say that's more organized.

Maybe they meant that the events didn't start on time or something. I don't know, but I'm sure all the full discussions are out there on Livejournal behind secret locked posts. Locked posts on Livejournal are the lifeblood of Florida anime fandom.

does that mean that it won't be approved or that it's just a matter of time?

I just told you: it's already been approved and has been approved for weeks now. If that's someone else who did that, then I guess you'd need to come up with another username. This is why I use "Daryl Surat" on messageboards. It's never already taken.

Hearing up on another exciting podcast, I can't help but feel I should add in my two cents too, I find I help people out whenever possible.

Yeah, as someone else said before in this comment section, "Daicon IV" was produced right after guys like Anno went to work on the Macross TV series, and it shows dearly in the executing, the knowledge they gain from becoming pros in the process, whereas "Daicon III" was done a few years before, and only by three people as reported. I hate to admit I have a soft spot for Daicon III as I found the plotting quite good for a first start, and the animation picks up well by the end of it.

Both films were produced using a Fujica brand Single 8mm camera, not to be confused with "Super-8mm", though I think the perf holes were identical. It might look similar to this pic...http://static.marktplaza.nl/images/1/84/635084.jpg

There had been a plan to do "Daicon IV" in 16mm, but for budget/time constraints, they went with the 8mm format instead, but it's still impressive to see the use of dissolves and other opticals that might've been done in camera as opposed to being processed in the lab. By that point in time, they guys must've also had standard animation equipment to use than whatever they had back in '81 (I read someplace the "cels" were really overhead projection sheets or something).

Noticed you didn't put a link in the show notes for that one convention intro piece I was going to see, so I guess I'll have to re-listen over the podcast to catch the URL for later, but I bet it was stil quite effective in what the guys wanted to say in that one, as opposed to the clunky Flash work I see today as in the one for A-kon with the squirrel informing the fanboys on the rules of the convention, giving big emphasis on personal hygene with some girl in a typical magical shojo attire complaining about it.

Hearing about "The Twelve Kingdoms", it sounds more a show I could probably get into quite well, and it's funny to hear of Daryl's childhood nightmares involving Venger from the crappy D&D cartoon. I on the other hand actually loved watching that a whole lot, wanting to be one of the guys in the show. The thing that sorta killed it for me was in the fact that it was done in the typical cartoony manner that Marc Handler described many shows ago, and there was never a resolve at the end of the show, besides an obvious teaser at some point where the guys finally make it out of that bloody ride, Venger follows, rips ass all over the park, and the have to go back to the world they worked so hard to escape from. It was a shame to have spent many saturdays on a program I felt could've worked effectively well if there was a sort of continuity among the self-contained episodes.

Getting out of D&D, The AWA report was concise and to-the-point I felt. Incidentally, the film that was showed during the Totally Lame Anime was "Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei" or "Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors" (at least what one title on imdb.com went for). A friend of mine who has been releaseing a lot of great rare animated work on DVD lately, Steve Stanchfield, has also seen this film, and would LOVE to add it to a later collection of WWII material he wanted to put out soon, but said that one place he checked to wouldn't give him permission to do so, which is a shame since I'd like to see just how twisted this sort of thing was (WWII propaganda from the "other side" would be a neat comparison to what we'd seen domestically). His little business he operates is Thunderbean Animation, and his work can be bought from most online places (though Best Buy tried to carry a few titles back like they did with DiscoTek Media's releases)....http://www.thunderbeananimation.com/Thunderbean%20Website/NewFiles/dvdsales.html

Here's a quick review for a disc in particular he offers called "Cartoons for Victory!"....http://reviews.goldenagecartoons.com/victory/

Someone stuck the first couple minutes of this film here for anyone who might like to get a taste of it...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDSnFedr2fo

Thinking about the English voice acting in the film, I wonder if it holds up more than the one guy they got to play the professor character in the "Tale of Two Robots" sequence of "Robot Carnival"? That voice was quite irritating I felt.

I do admit, I think venus like YouTube, or practically the Internet in general has killed what AnimeHell used to be nowadays? Thinking of substituting Heino with Hard Gay, I often oncer if HG is a little too well recognized to be shown in such a format since I do see him a lot over at GBS.tv or other venues (a Hard Gay movie is said to be in the works lately). Often I wonder if I should go further into my collection for the one thing that hasn't escaped into the net yet?

The parody dubs are often not seen at all over the net, Me and a friend of mine wished we got to see some of the classics like the ones Sherbert Productions did in the 90's with the Gatchaman OVA's I've read about. There's a few others I forgot about.

Compairing it to "American Pie" would probably be a nice comparison, though often I look to American Pie as the 90's answer to "Porky's" in the 80's (my personal fav). The whole video room thing vs. the net reminds me of what the Spike & Mike's Festival of Animation used to be when they would show off the "Sick & Twisted" shorts that people could only see in those festivals, or pay $30 for a VHS tape of it later on, as opposed to the easier way anyone could see that stuff on the net nowadays without having to leave the door.

Nice to hear people still stayed to watch something in B&W, I know a lot of people that often wouldn't stand for that and leave. Nice that AWA doesn't get those snobs that would get peeved over little technicalities.

Neat to see Dagger of Kamui will be reviewed next week (and me having to put up with the terrible "Revenge of the Ninja Warrior" tape when I first saw it). :-)

Don't know if my town hardly has an anime club at all that I've heard about besides one or two, and not sure how long they've been around for at all.

Oh and Daryl, yeah, that was called a "singer", I learned that way back in the days of trading MST3K tapes. Too bad my comment bit is a bit too long to suffice, but I guess I can just say "bye" and be done with.

Great episode! As a Twelve Kingdoms fan, I found Daryl's spoiler hilarious because I've become familiar with the intricate lexicon of the show. I highly recommend it to anyone as well. At any rate, keep it up!

Daryl: I don't want this to turn into a Anime Jump help forum, but I've e-mailed chiefdork and he never replied. It was me who registered the Kaonashi account on October 31st. Since then I haven't received any e-mail telling me that the account is now fully activated. When I try to use the "I forgot my password" form, this is the error I get:

"Sorry, but your password cannot be retrieved because your account is currently inactive. Please contact the forum administrator for more information."

While waiting for the activation, I also tried to register another account, José Filipe. That account is in the exacvt same situation.

Here are comments from the show's writer on the lost finale episode, which would have closed out the show. There is a link to the actual script at the end of his entry.

http://www.michaelreaves.com/requiem_preface.htm

Spoilers ahoy! While I don't have time to re-read the script as I'm still trying to look busy at work, I recall the big twist being something like Venger being the Dungeon Master's brother, and the show being about his ultimate redemption by the kids. Though I do like the urban legend about the kids having died on the coaster and the fantasy world being Hell.

urk! I totally submit to the fact that I screwed up the characters names in Maison Ikkoku, this is what I get for typing up a response while getting yelled at by everyone around the office. I totally got that one wrong.

Chris- Here are comments from the show's writer on the lost finale episode, which would have closed out the show. There is a link to the actual script at the end of his entry. http://www.michaelreaves.com/requiem_preface.htm

Spoilers ahoy! While I don't have time to re-read the script as I'm still trying to look busy at work, I recall the big twist being something like Venger being the Dungeon Master's brother, and the show being about his ultimate redemption by the kids. Though I do like the urban legend about the kids having died on the coaster and the fantasy world being Hell.

No sooner after I made my comment I noticed that link. I'll have to read that script, but it's still a shame the network couldn't go forward on it while they had the chance.

Thanks for cleaing up on the "industrial plastic" used for Daicon III, those guys were really knew how to improvise on that one. Gotta read Takeda's book soon.

Also of note, having to listen to the podcast again, I noticed a mention of Cartoon Network in Germany gettting shown up to midnight, with TCM taking over from then on. I remember the UK doing something similar to this years back through their digital satellite services, possibly due to lack of channel space. Also of thought is the way some cable companies in the US have pulled the same BS as well like mine did for Univision almost 15 years ago (don't get that channel anymore, but it would've been neat to have saw what Dave Merrill did when he saw Univision way back in it's infancy).

One note I also like to point out is that when Akira Toriyama was doing the DB manga, it wasn't really called "DBZ" in manga form, as that was the title Toei used for the anime and other promotional marketing ploys. It was still called "Dragon Ball" in Shonen Jump from beginning to end (the manga though had been released as "Dragon Ball Z" by VIZ in North America anyway, some other countries probably did the same too). Of course after Toriyama hanged up his pen from that, Toei went ahead at doing "Dragon Ball GT" which was all original and crap.

Another manga/anime that follows the same generic plot that Daryl describe that came to my head is "Those Who Hunt Elves", but that's about it.

This work was funded by the Imperial Navy and released months before the war ended. I know some local (San Francisco) shop keepers who saw it as kids when it came out. BTW the US tried to destroy all copies but one survived in the back of a studio warehouse until it was found in the 1980s.

The English acting is very much an imitation of British upperclass mush mouth nearly incomprehensible, one hears this in older British films on occasion. The actors were probably civilians stuck in Japan during the war and placed in camps for the duration, though some were not. The English does have side titles on the right of the screen.

My feeling was that Maison Ikkoku the anime is a pretty poor adaptation of the manga. In fact I shall go against the grain and say it's the worst of the adaptations of Takahashi's work.

The manga has quite a zippy pace to each chapter, and tends to alleviate any melodrama with light romantic humour. It's a balance that works out well.

Because the anime has 20+ minutes to fill each episode, it ends up stretching the content of the manga.

And you can't really stretch jokes to fill time. If you want the same proportion of humour to melodrama, you've got to write more jokes.

So rather than do something that would involve work, they stretch out the melodrama to the extent that what light humour is there no longer alleviates it. It results in a leaden pace and romantic misunderstandings that worked on the page, leave me screaming at the two leads for being such dolts.

so lazy, i cant even read all 31 comments. So im going to ask, does anyone have a recording of Carl Horn's panel. Or a site i can find it. thanks. Oh and BTW best podcast ever, keep the good times rolling. Cheers!

Having read the last couple statements, I still haven't seen the anime for Maison Ikkoku myself, but read the entire manga. I can expect that to be the case if they did had to go that extra mile in stretching the melodrama out to a rediculous length. If I had saw that first before tha anime, I probably would've lost interest after so many episodes into it. Still, it didn't stop a friend of mine from aquiring LD box sets of this along with UY and Ranma 1/2 some years back.

I like the pacing of the Maison Ikkoku anime. Each episode works quite well and the slower moments add to the atmosphere. It is more cinematic in this way than Ranma 1/2 or Inuyasha. But then it is also about people with somewhat ordinary lives compared to the unusual nature of the other series.

The story also spans several years of the lives of the protagonists, after all Godai is trying to get into college in the early episodes and has graduated by the time the series is over.

A shorter series probably would have felt rushed given all the plot elements with the secondary characters. I also read the manga at a slow pace, savoring each chapter and this could have influenced my perception of the pace of the anime.

Maison Ikkoku is quite a normal pace as opposed to the other works Takahashi has done. At times I wanted to be like Godai and go through those years of torment, just waiting for that right moment when it all comes together. Feel like going back and re-reading it again. :-)

I didn't realize that Uresei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku shared a creator. I tried watching both and had to stop after one episode of each. In fact, I think I started screaming in frustration before the end of the first episode of MI. Now I know why. I had heard a lot of good things about Inuyasha so I always figured I would watch it some day. Now I know not to bother.

RE: Daryl's 12 Kingdoms review. Very good job. I watched the first DVD, and at the end realized that I was really angry at all of the characters. As Daryl mentioned, the setting was extremely familiar, so I knew damned well what Yoko needed to do, and she wasn't doing it, with BAD consequences. At the same time, her fantasy-reading friend was way too gung-ho. I decided a mediocre show wouldn't be capable of (or dare to) provoke such a reaction. I bought the whole series, even though it was quite pricey. I am so glad I did.

The Bristol-Meyers Luau that interrupted our setup at AWA was one of those deals where they drive a dump truck full of money up to the hotel, and the hotel says "Oh, we can make everybody happy!" and they can't, but they try. AWA's got to shoehorn inself into two big facilities in between giant corporate events, so our leverage has to be used wisely, judo-style.

The registration line was incredibly bad, and there are a few reasons that it was terrible, and hopefully we'll be fixing those next year. The opening ceremonies got delayed because the room wasn't ready, and then they got delayed because the guests were visiting the Cartoon Network...

Thanks for the compliments about the panels and the events that DID work.

I am not going to replace Heino with "Hard Gay". I am going to replace Heino with Armenian poetry films. Every time somebody yells out for Heino, they get avant-garde Armenian poetry films.

I'm pretty sure that if it's become a running joke that everybody "gets", I won't be running it at my Anime Hell.

I've read a shitload of ranma 1/2 and inu yasha, but only 1 volume of MI. Inu Yasha just became 1 huge filler where they only had 3 plot lines that they repeated for every episode. I enjoyed Ranma 1/2, though I haven't finished because I forgot which volume I'm at. It didn't have a plot and I didn't have to think about it, so it was a great read after a hard test that I'd spend a week studying. I liked volume 1 of MI, but thought that it would just become another IY so I haven't continued.

I guess I'll try the 12 Kingdoms. I read the 1st 2 vol. of Fushigi Yugi and didn't like it (except for Nuriko--he/she/it rocked, just like Angel from RENT) so when I saw 12 Kingdoms in the store, I was like "Hell no!" But, I'll reconsider it. Espescially since you can get it really cheap in the used bins! =^_^=

There's really no anime clubs where I'm at. There was one, run by one of my friends and a few other people, but they stopped it around the time I found out about it. And that friend also became a total whore. Which makes no sense, seeing as how she's half my height and twice my weight (not that I'm bragging about my body. Except that I am--go self esteem!). There's none at the high school I go to, though there may be one at the high my friends go to (and I was supposed to go to) but my friends have a fear of fanboys and would never join a club even IF there was one.

I'd love to go to AWA, but there's no way I could get there (even though Atlanta's only a few hours from Jax). My parents are paranoid that if I'll go to something like that, I'll end up living in their nonexistent basement!

I'd love to go to AWA, but there's no way I could get there (even though Atlanta's only a few hours from Jax). My parents are paranoid that if I'll go to something like that, I'll end up living in their nonexistent basement!

Geez, I'm almost 30 and I still haven't left the house!

By the way, hopefully people won't miss out on it tonight, but Turner Classic Movies is having an animation auteur triple feature of classics to view....

Since I've just had a voicemail played, I figured I'd post my thoughts on a standing question posed on a past AWO show...

I really do think you guys nailed it, at least partially, when you said that watching moe shows on fansub takes away a lot of the incentive to buy the DVDs. That's true for any show, especially shows that don't have a strong narrative style, or shows that are cheaply animated and ugly in ways that a slick DVD transfer wouldn't remedy. Naturally, Sister Princess falls into both of these categories, so I doubt anyone who watched the fansubs would really have any motivation to buy it.

And let's face it, the audience for shows like Sister Princess are very limited as it is. A lot of hardcore anime fans think Sister Princess is pretty reprehensible, and most of them are accepting of things that casual and non-fans would run screaming from. So if that small core audience are gorging themselves on fansubs, it hardly comes as a surprise that Sister Princess is boned by the time it hits store shelves.

But in the case of moe shows selling more merchandise than DVDs, I have my little pet theory on that. When it really comes down to it, shows like Sister Princess aren't really selling involving fiction or strong characters. They're really only selling two things: slick character designs and that peculiar schematic of manufactured, unconditional pseudolove that seems germane to moe titles.

So really, the shows themselves are kind of asides the point. Moe apologists always say these shows' selling point is the characters, but I don't think the appeal lies in the characters as part of a greater narrative, or even as fictional people. The appeal is in the concept of girls that look and act like these characters act. If these girls are just avatars for that concept, all that's really required is merchandise emblazoned with their likenesses for the audience to be reminded of that warm, fuzzy moe feeling. The show itself is just incidental.

That's my idea, anyway.

To up the snark quotient, maybe they just buy the merchandise because they want the girls all to themselves. Screw that token milquetoast male character getting all the girls to himself.

- whether "Stardust Crusaders" is the best saga- the effect of how Araki choose not to have the next boss more powerful than the last- What's going to happen after Steel Ball Run, when Stone Ocean choose to end like that

The turrets track, and the cannon barrels lay into position, 1-2-3 just like the show, to the actual sound effects...engines light up, bridges and captain's dome light up, wave motion gun fires, I think they even have opening bow missile tube hatches..

All controlled from a wireless remote that looks like the Wave Motion Gun firing grip.

It's an astonishing piece of work. I just wish it looked more like the actual 'as seen in the anime' Yamato and less like the PS game revision.

I wish Bandai's kits looked more like the machines do in the animation, but the market for them is very revisionist about the machines. Detail freaks, you know. Katoki fans, not Ohkawara fans. Gundam's big enough that they have separate toy lines for the more authentically 70's look but everybody else....

Halo, that 1/350 Yukikaze is indeed a big hunk of resin, available in either 'finished' or 'kit' versions. There's also a 'Gamilas Ship' in the same scale, we all know it better as the Gamilas Destroyer, the 'fish ship' that is always getting blown up.

I still hold my fanboy anger that Bandai has been wasting all this time with limited run, expensive garage kits when they SHOULD be popping all this stuff out in lovely, easy to build, CHEAP polystyrene injection mold plastic. The market is there but they're going for 'expensive cult item' profits.

Hey, just wanted to thank you guys for your comments about the con. As Dave said, there wasn't much we could do about the BM deal that messed things up for us and some of our attendees but as I understand from higher ups, there will be serious discussion with the hotel on the issue.

I know how you feel about vid room in general, but also you have to keep in mind not everyone is able DL or buy anime on a whim, so I still feel even for new materials there is a need for video rooms at a convention. Also, you have people who just want to gather among others and go through emotional ups and downs like they would at a movie theater.

The classics anime room was fun to put together. I approached Dave about about the idea and his taking it over on Saturday evening, and it turned out pretty cool in the end. I was kinda surprised by the turnout and afraid in part that it wouldn't draw anyone the whole time, yet there were people wanting to see titles which, as you noted, are not available on the net or R1 DVD. so yeah, digging up Heidi and Phoenix was a hoot. It was also fun to see a bunch of people asking for Gegege No Kitaro. My assistant director was telling me people were asking for the classic stuff on the schedule left and right.

As to the mechfest, my apologies (especially to Gerald) on the scheduling. I didn't know it was against an AWO panel you guys were doing. I never know when that is as I'm never priviy to panel schedules beforehand. Might try to change that this year however, at least a little. I saw Daryl and Clarissa there for a bit though. Hope you guys enjoyed yourselves somewhat. I enjoyed the mechfest simply because it's one of the few times I can sing the Getter Robo opening theme song with a bunch of fellow fans like it was a karaoke bar or something. :p

Looking forward to your reviews of The Dagger of Kamui and particularly Jojo's Bizarre Adventures. I personally consider Jojo's the best fighting anime created. Also, only in an anime could Vanilla Ice defeat Iggy Pop. Heh.

Oh, one other thign I forgot, thanks for pointing out that opening footage from Anime Expo. What these guys did is pretty darned cool. I'd never seen it before. Reminded me of the closing footage from the Robotech movie that was attached to the English dub of Megazone 23 Pt. 2 back in the day. And before you start to think any negative connotations here, I have fond memories of that footage and dub as part of my earliest anime experiences, so the fact an American crew prompted a similar response from me is a good thing. Hmmm.... might show that in the classics room next year if able. Anyways, take care.

Oh, one other thign I forgot, thanks for pointing out that opening footage from Anime Expo. What these guys did is pretty darned cool. I'd never seen it before. Reminded me of the closing footage from the Robotech movie that was attached to the English dub of Megazone 23 Pt. 2 back in the day. And before you start to think any negative connotations here, I have fond memories of that footage and dub as part of my earliest anime experiences, so the fact an American crew prompted a similar response from me is a good thing. Hmmm.... might show that in the classics room next year if able. Anyways, take care.

Oh yeah, that ending! It's still quite a nifty end, though I kinda forgot about it's orgins, whether that was something produced specially for Carl Macek's film or was it like some alternate ending to MG23, I often read different things about it.

Love seeing that Yamato model, that think is F--kin' beautiful! Too bad I'm not that big into the model thing at all.

I still hold my fanboy anger that Bandai has been wasting all this time with limited run, expensive garage kits when they SHOULD be popping all this stuff out in lovely, easy to build, CHEAP polystyrene injection mold plastic. The market is there but they're going for 'expensive cult item' profits.

I don't know if I agree. I mean I'm sure the market is healthy in Japan, but I have a hard time believing that it's as big now where there's videogames and such around, as it was in say in the early 80's when it was one of the only games in town.

Also, I thought they were still making cheap model kits. I've seen some cheaper kits come out for Eureka 7, SD Gundam, Armored Core, and Mars Daybreak so I don't think they've forgotten about that market completely.

If you look at Hobby Japan it looks like the only styrene models of anime mecha that sell are Gundam plastic kits. There are sometimes kits from other series, but the Gundam brand has sort of eaten the rest of the market. Bandai does make cheapo kits for just about every mecha series as it comes out though.

Companies go with resin for smaller markets because it makes more business sense and, as a side note, because the detail in resin figures is way better.

(put your moemoe resin kit of choice next to your its PVC clone and the differences are clear. same goes for gundam stuff, but they're not the EXACT SAME figure)

sub: The differences between resin and plastic are just a question of production cost. The tooling for plastic is vastly more expensive than resin; plastic kits don't get economical until you're producing tens of thousands of them. So there is a cost savings in simplifying the plastic kits. There are plenty of superdetailed plastic kits out there, from manufacturers like Tamiya or Hasegawa.

There are Hasegawa kits like this one that are so unbelievably detailed that I wonder how someone could possibly paint everything. And then I look into Hobby Japan and have to realize that the Japanese are capable of it. To give an example, the dashboard in these models is one tiny piece of plastic that's probably no smaller than a dime. Yet, somehow, I've seen photos of those painted with each button colored and with a small schematic pained onto the tiny screen. I've got the photo in an issue of Hobby Japan that I should scan since it's pretty amazing, that is, if it's not Photoshoped.

Gerald said... There are Hasegawa kits like this one that are so unbelievably detailed that I wonder how someone could possibly paint everything. And then I look into Hobby Japan and have to realize that the Japanese are capable of it. To give an example, the dashboard in these models is one tiny piece of plastic that's probably no smaller than a dime. Yet, somehow, I've seen photos of those painted with each button colored and with a small schematic pained onto the tiny screen. I've got the photo in an issue of Hobby Japan that I should scan since it's pretty amazing, that is, if it's not Photoshoped.

It makes me think of a movie Dudley Moore was in called "Crazy People", where he gets sent to the nut house and turns the other patients into ad agency execs with terribly crazy ideas for ads that speak in a bulls__t fashion. One that came up way at the end for Sony has a guy bring up that caucasians were just too damn big to handle tiny circuitry that the Japanese are capable of. I just thought of it for that one scene.